Queen Anne chef endures fire and worse in spate of horrible fortune
Everybody has their lucky days and those fraught with misfortune, but for Maro Gjurasic, the yin and yang between luck and things that go horribly wrong seemed to orbit him like heavy planets.
As winter approached in 2007, Gjurasic was practically broke. And things were looking grim. No unemployment compensation due to a technicality, and his carpentry gig had come to a standstill.
Only a year before he had been one of the hot, promising young chefs of Seattle leaving his subtle touches at a hatful of notable restaurants such as Ponti Seafood Grill, Il Bistro, Q and the Paragon Bar & Grill atop Queen Anne Hill.
He also had a part-time gig on a touring yacht. As the sleek vessel carved its way through Lake Union, from the kitchen Gjurasic could listen in on the din and gossip of guests such as the Hilton family, deans of major universities and international dignitaries, for whom he prepared Copper River salmon caught earlier that day and flown down to the yacht for the evening's entree.
He worked shoulder to shoulder with Scottish chef Caroline Shaw, Matt Dillon (who now owns Eastlake's Sitka and Spruce) and private chef J.J. Johnson. It was a good time.
But after 15 years of working in the restaurant trade where he hadn't had a weekend off for most of those years, and where there was never a shortage of workplace culture clashes, Gjurasic had had enough.
His roommate had been doing carpentry so he figured he'd give that a try, to at least clear his mind and figure out what he wanted to do. For eight months he put on his grubbies and helped build houses, some in Magnolia and near his home in Queen Anne. As the new guy, he found himself charged with lugging 100-pound bags of cement.
But as winter neared, the work dried up. He scrolled through Craigslist for work, restaurant and otherwise but there was nothing. He literally kept a dollar in his pocket for the bus were he ever to get an interview, but he had lost touch with some of his food connections.
Then came Feb. 21 when the good luck and the bad luck collided like a BMW and a garbage truck. Gjurasic went to The Paragon Bar & Grill to pick up a W-2 form. Briefly in 2007, Gjurasic helped cook when owner Todd Ivester was short handed. Hours before Gjurasic walked in, the current chef at the Paragon had given his notice. Ivester was happy to see Gjurasic.
They talked about reinstating Gjurasic as executive chef. The job was his if he wanted it.
That same day a carpentry buddy called Gjurasic and said he needed him to paint the interior of a massive residence recently flipped in Capitol Hill. Immediately, Gjurasic put on his grubbiest clothes and headed out.
He was still painting at 10 p.m. when he got the call from his roommate.
"She said the house was on fire, and she couldn't find my dog," Gjurasic said. "She had been in bed and had smelled smoke and had heard the crackle of fire. The whole first floor was full of smoke." She opened his bedroom door and flames came pouring out.
He hung up. He and his friend raced from Capitol Hill to Queen Anne. He knew that when they would turn the corner at 10th Avenue West, he would either see some guy with a fire extinguisher dusting himself off and everything was fine or the street would be lit up with a cadre of police and fire vehicles.
"They were holding my dog. They had my dog wrapped up and had a hose in her mouth trying to give her oxygen."
- Maro Gjurasic said of firefighters who tried to save his dog
"There were six or seven fire trucks, hoses running across the street. It was smoky and there were police cars blocking the area off," Gjurasic said. "I was in complete, complete and utter shock."
He drew nearer and saw his roommate in her bathrobe clutching her dog to her chest. She looked at him, then motioned toward a fire truck. There were five sooty firemen huddled around the back of the truck.
"I walked up; they were holding my dog," he said, his voice starting to waver. "They had my dog wrapped up and had a hose in her mouth trying to give her oxygen."
The firefighters were able to stabilize the little dog but it had suffered so much smoke inhalation and her condition worsened. Gjurasic brought the dog to his veterinarian but she was suffering by this point, and he had her put down.
"It was probably the hardest thing I had to do," he said.
With his worst clothes suddenly becoming his only clothes, and having lost everything in the fire, including about $3,000 in culinary knives, some that had been custom fitted for his hand, "the tools of my trade," he said, Gjurasic found himself again at the foot of sweet compassion and retched misfortune.
The Red Cross put him up at a hotel for a few weeks and neighbors and family donated some clothes and toiletries (he'd been wearing the same grubby painting clothes for four days). He also occasionally stayed at his girlfriend's apartment on Capitol Hill. His mother's friend, an auto mechanic, heard the news and lent him a car. Ivester also gave him $300 in giftcards and deposit money for an apartment. One Queen Anne native helping another Queen Anne native, something that Gjurasic is aware of and grateful for.
"Whatever I needed, he was there for me," Gjurasic said of Ivester.
Upon returning to the hotel, he saw all his donated clothes and toiletries had been thrown out of the hotel room by mistake. And then the car he borrowed died. And with all the stress, he started having chest pains and, uninsured, went to the hospital as a precaution.
But normalcy and health are returning to Gjurasic's world. He has a full-time job now as executive chef of The Paragon where he is exploring novel ideas for the menu, such as pulled pork sliders, cornbread crabcakes and other down-home, Southern-accented dishes. Gjurasic's mother lived in Louisiana and Ivester is from South Carolina. The idea hit Gjurasic in the shower one day, "Why don't we do a Northwest soulfood?" he said. "I'm trying to get it rolling."
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